A sintered body of ceramics, which is excellent in thermal properties and has high density, is now attracting attention as a frontier material among various structural materials in widely varying fields of industries. As a typical example, there is a sintered body of silicon nitride.
In the art of production of silicon nitride sintered bodies, there have generally been adopted the reaction sintering method, the hot press method and the ordinary sintering method.
Among them, the reaction sintering method is a method in which metallic silicon powders are molded previously into a desired shape, which is in turn heated gradually in an atmosphere of nitrogen or ammonia gas thereby to be converted to a nitride simultaneously with sintering (see, for example, Proc. of DARPA/NAVSEA, Ceramic Gas Turbine Demonstration Engine Program Review, ed. by W. Fairbanks and R. W. Rice, MCIC Report, March 1978 [MCIC-78-36]).
The hot press method comprises adding a sintering aid (e.g. Y.sub.2 O.sub.3, MgO, Al.sub.2 O.sub.3) to the powders of silicon nitride (Si.sub.3 N.sub.4), and sintering the resultant mixture in a certain mold (e.g. a mold of graphite) at a high temperature of 1700.degree. to 1800.degree. C. by application of a pressure of 500 kg/cm.sup.2 (see, for example, Norton Catalog). According to this method, there can be obtained a sintered product having a high density with greater mechanical strength and also having excellent impact resistance as well as excellent thermal properties with a small degree of lowering of mechanical strength under an oxidizing atmosphere at higher temperatures. However, while this method involves the drawback of difficult fabrication of a complicated and large size sintered body on one hand, it is also disadvantageously inferior in capability of bulk production.
On the other hand, the ordinary sintering method comprises previously moding Si.sub.2 N.sub.4 powders and a sintering aid together with a binder such as paraffin, and then sintering by heating the resultant compact as such without hot press under a non-oxidative atmosphere (see, for example, GTE Sylvania Catalog or Carborundum Co. Technical Sheet). According to this method, however, it is difficult to obtain a sintered body having a high density with excellent mechanical strength and impact resistance.